Did Gay Marriage Give Bush the Presidency?

According to an article on Slate entitled The Gay Marriage Myth that was posted last Friday, the assertions that the issue of gay marriage gave Bush the Presidency are overrated. Terrorism was the overriding factor, according to the article.

I suppose it will offer no comfort to any of us who didn’t want to see Bush have four more years of running this country into the ground, but it should at least be some comfort to the gay community that there are some out there who do not want to place blame for this solely on the gay community.

Did “moral values”—in particular, the anti-gay marriage measures on ballots in 11 states this week—drive President Bush’s re-election? That’s the early conventional wisdom as Democrats begin soul-searching and finger-pointing. These measures are alleged to have drawn Christian conservatives to the polls, many of whom failed to vote last time. The theory is intriguing, but the data don’t support it. Gay marriage and values didn’t decide this election. Terrorism did.

The morality theory rests on three claims. The first is that gay-marriage bans led to higher turnout, chiefly among Christian conservatives. The second is that Bush performed especially well where gay marriage was on the ballot. The third is that in general, moral issues decided the election.

The evidence that having a gay-marriage ban on the ballot increased voter turnout is spotty. Marriage-ban states did see higher turnout than states without such measures. They also saw higher increases in turnout compared with four years ago. But these differences are relatively small. [...]

Why did states with gay-marriage ballot measures vote so heavily for Bush? Because such measures don’t appear on state ballots randomly. Opponents of gay marriage concentrate their efforts in states that are most hospitable to a ban and are most likely to vote for Bush even without such a ballot measure. A state’s history of voting for Bush is more likely to lead to an anti-gay-marriage measure on that state’s ballot than the other way around.

I also want to make a bigger point here. What has happened has happened. In our futures we will all have to experience what is happening to our national debt. We have a President who doesn’t seem to care much about that, but sooner or later, we will all have to deal with it. I’m sure President Bush won’t. He will be back in Crawford, Texas, and no longer the President.

The gay community should brace for a renewed effort in his second term for a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. The separation of church and state NO LONGER EXISTS in this country. This President has made sure of that and will continue to strive to put in place discriminatory legislation against whoever is against him and his beliefs (atheists, are you listening? - you are probably next on the list), SO HELP HIM GOD!

I’m also mindful of what is going on today, right now, in Fallujah. My thoughts are with our troops and what they face. It’s unimaginable to me what horrors that might await them in that hell hole. But somehow, I’m sure our President will figure it out. He always does. He’s such a smart man.